Read Jumper: Griffin's Story for Free Online Page B

and sat down on the couch.
    After a moment, Sam put the bottle away and brought his glass across the room. He picked up the chair and sat on it, forward this time, slumped a little.
    "What was that?" he asked quietly, his voice still hoarse. The smell of whiskey came with his breath, reminding me of Dad's weekly scotch.
    "I went to a Safeway, in
San Diego
, bought the beans, and came back."
    "I got the bean part. You bought them?"
    "The express line was empty."
    "Well, yeah, I guess I see that. What I don't get is the traveling to
San Diego
part."
    I nodded. "It's the thing I can do. I jumped. Teleported. Whatever you want to call it."
    "Is that how you got those clothes?"
    I nodded. "Yeah, I went back to my flat and got my allowance and my passport." My voice broke and convulsively I said, "The tape outlines were still there–and the blood. And someone started to come up the stairs and I jumped away."
    "Deep breaths, kid. Slow it down."
    I nodded and tried that, until my heart wasn't racing.
    After a bit he asked, "How long have you been able to do this thing?"
    "I did it for the first time when I was five, back in
Oxford
. In public. In front of witnesses. We've been moving ever since."
    "Moving? Why?"
    "Dad and Mum said it was the people who started showing up, asking questions at their work. Then there was a close call on the street–a car. I thought it was a careless driver. Anyway, I skipped back behind a postal box and he missed me but he kept driving. No harm done, I thought. But Mum saw it from upstairs. I heard her tell Dad he'd been waiting for me to cross."
    He sucked on his teeth. "Can you go anywhere?"
    "Anywhere I've been before that I can remember well enough."
    He swallowed the last of his whiskey. "I can see why they'd want you–could be handy. But why do they want to kill you? If I could do what you do–if I was the sort of man ... I'd want to capture you, to use what you do."
    "Well, Dad talked about that, too. We read that Stephen King book about the girl who is kidnapped by the government."
    "Firestarter" said Sam. "Didn't read it but I saw the movie."
    "Yeah, with Drew Barrymore. We rented it after we read the book."
    "But why not something like that? Why do they want to kill you instead?"
    My heart started racing and I was breathing fast again. Before Sam said anything I deliberately took deep, slow breaths. Grief may have been one of the things that the gauze was muffling but I recognized the other thing now.
    Fear.
    They were going to kill me. They followed us for over five years until they found us and then they tried to kill me. Made me want to hide under a bed. Made me want to curl up in a ball and pull dirt over me.
    I went back to just breathing. Sam's question still floated out there, though, like a falling glass of milk. You can't grab it in time, you just watch it as it drops, anticipating the spreading puddle of white liquid and jagged glass. "I don't know why they want to kill me."
    Later, after supper, in the dusk after sunset, I told Sam I was going back to the flat. "Why?"
    "Well, for one thing, my clothes are starting to stink. I want my things."
    "And don't you think they'll be waiting?"
    "Of course!" My voice was shrill and I clamped my mouth shut and concentrated on my breathing again. I wondered if I was getting asthma or something. After a bit I said, "I'm not going straight there. I'll jump to the neighborhood first and check it out."
    "Clothes can be bought, kid."
    I dug out my hoard and spread it out on the coffee table. There were sixty–three dollars and some change, fifteen francs, and seven pounds, eight shillings, four p. "Not really gonna last that long, is it?
    "Besides–it's my birthday. I'm ten. I should be able to get my own stuff."
    "I really don't think you shou – "
    Didn't hear the rest but as I walked toward the flat from my jump site behind the school hedge, I felt guilty. I hope I hadn't messed up the living room too much. Sam had done nothing but help me